


The Devil's Own I - Secret Agent Man

by ethrosdemon, inkandchocolate



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-28
Updated: 2010-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethrosdemon/pseuds/ethrosdemon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandchocolate/pseuds/inkandchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander is a man with a mission. No clue, but a mission none the less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Own I - Secret Agent Man

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTES: Approaching slashy goodness, hold on, it's a wild ride.  
> DEDICATIONS: ethrosdemon would like to dedicate this to the Host, her new love, and the Improv List for being so rad. Lar would like to dedicate this to ethrosdemon and Donna and Sam, who are her pillars and her mainstays and her buddies and her pals.

Roadtrips and Xander are never a good combination.

This is all well documented by his last attempt to do the Kerouac thing and how that ended: G-strings and sweaty money and papercuts in places no one should ever have them. The memory makes him shudder in a not completely unpleasant way, and he adjusts himself self consciously before he looks at the address on the paper he's been crumpling in his hand for the last 15 minutes.

The bar looks like he supposes any other bar would look, and since his vast experience only covers the Bronze and the Fabulous Ladies' Nightclub with a two night stand at the campus watering hole, it's not entirely reassuring. Not all of his points of reference are good ones.

Not to mention all the fucking demons everywhere.

Maybe this is what the average bar looks like in Hell.

Wondering briefly what part of the conversation he missed that had led the entire gang to decide he was the man for this particular job, Xander backs up to the bar and tries to look less jumpy that he really is. He's not all that successful at putting on the casual mask; several of the things beside him sniff the air rather obviously before moving away. They leave a vaguely iridescent path of lavender slime behind them, like a freaky trail of demonic breadcrumbs. The things are big enough to get away with having lavender colored anything as part of their bodily functions. If the size didn't persuade you to keep your opinions to yourself, Xander's pretty sure that the 4 inch claws on their hands and the 6 inch horns - all four of them - on their heads make a statement all their own. He's convinced he's been insulted but also even more positive that he's going to let it slide.

Where the hell was his damn contact person? And why did he feel more like Maxwell Smart than James Bond? Any second now, his shoe would start ringing, and Agent 99 would come in to save his ass from some enormous fuck up... He shook his head to clear it. What were these people smoking in here?

A hand falls gently on his shoulder, and to his credit Xander only jumps a few inches and doesn't yelp at all. He does note that his heart rate accelerates alarmingly, that can't be a good thing. Praying that he isn't being picked up by something that doesn't speak English, he turns slowly to face whatever it is.

"Good of you to come so quickly." The voice, so proper and familiar, is suddenly the oddest thing in the entire bar.

"Wesley?" Feels stupid for saying it, but it's all just too surreal to not make some kind of verification before proceeding. "You're my contact?"

"Yes, I do apologize for the cloak and dagger routine, but this is a matter of some urgency. It's not something I feel free to discuss on the telephone." Wesley is looking around the bar as he speaks. There's a pleasant smile on his face; his body language is carefully relaxed and open, but Xander sees dark circles under eyes gone bright with tension and stress. Wesley looks decidedly rumpled, as if he's been sleeping in those clothes for a few days.

Or possibly not sleeping at all.

Xander follows Wesley's stare into the crowd and tenses again as he sees a tall horned demon in a light colored suit come towards them. If Wesley is reacting to this guy in a not-happy way, he's going to follow the lead and be on his guard as well.

The guy comes right up to them both, gives Xander a serious once-over, turns to Wesley with a smile.

"Oh brother, I'm telling you, I have got to pull out my compact and check my eyebrows for scorchmarks! Just when I think the hot-o-meter has gone off the scale with your usual gang of four, in comes number five to break all the records." He takes a sip of his drink and tilts his head at Xander again, gestures towards the stage with a strange grace. "So tell me, tall, dark and shaggy, you want to light up my life with a little music of the heart?"

Xander smiles at him. "Excuse me." Turns to Wesley and tries to whisper without moving his lips. "What the hell is that? Why does he know you? And is he flirting with me?"

Wesley glances at Xander briefly before turning to the Host and offering their apologies for not performing tonight. If anything, this adds to the list of questions growing in the back of Xander's brain, but Wesley has a surprisingly firm grip on his arm and they are, apparently, leaving.

Or not.

They reach the doorway and Wesley stops dead in his tracks and does such a sudden turn about that Xander almost loses his balance.

"Yo, Wesley, don't even try it, man. You stand out in here like a Mercedes at a tractor pull."

To be frank, Xander is more than a little surprised to hear the irritation in Wes' voice when he replies back to the really big black man who is now homing in on them. "Gunn. I thought I lost you an hour ago. Why do you have to be so blasted determined?"

This looks like it has the makings of being bad and going downhill from there. Xander makes an intervention. "Uh, yeah. Hi. You must be Gunn. I'm Xander." Sticks his hand out and watches Gunn eye it with all the relish of a piece of garbage before ignoring it completely and turning back to Wesley. "This your pick up for the night?"

"THIS," stresses Wesley with more than irritation in his voice, "is an acquaintance of mine. And Angel's. And Cordelia's for that matter. And we have business to discuss."

"Yeah, so he gets around. I don't care what you call him. What's going down right now is that you're hiding away in some bar with a pretty boy vamp while the boss is out playing the Hand of God."

"OK, let's just get something in order." Xander pulls his arm away from Wesley and straightens his shirt. "One, I am not a vampire. And B, I am not a pretty boy. And most importantly I'm not anybody's pick up for the night....especially not HIS."

Gunn quirks an eyebrow at him. "Whatever."

"I wasn't done. Tell me that the Boss with the God thing happening isn't Angel."

"That's what I brought you down here for," sighed Wesley. "Although I was hoping to give you a bit of the background before Gunn here came in and tossed it on the table."

"Hold up. You brought this skinny ass kid down here to take care of Angel? Wes, have you been dipping into your magic potions or something?" Gunn looks seriously pissed now, he's kicked up the facial expression from before to a degree that Xander was not aware was possible to achieve.

"Yeah, I hate to keep interrupting your argument, guys, but would someone tell me what the fuck is going on with Angel?" Xander puts his arms between Wes and Gun and shoves them apart. It works marginally on Wes, and Gunn goes nowhere. It does break the Angry Guy Staring Contest for the moment.

"Xander, I'm afraid we're not quite sure exactly what has happened to Angel. But I need to let Mr. Giles know that Angel has taken some seriously disturbing actions in the last few weeks, and begun to act not at all like his old self." Wesley looks at Xander carefully to be sure he's heard him correctly, and it hits Xander suddenly that he might have been right when he thought Wes had been missing out on his nightly naps.

Who could sleep when there was a combination of "Angel" and "disturbing" happening in the same sentence?

"Let me just respond to this all with a few questions before I have my panic attack." Xander's heart is thundering in his ears, and he tries to piece everything together. He wishes ardently that anyone else in the world had been chosen for this happy little mission, and if he makes it home alive he is turning over his title as Secret Agent Man immediately.

"What else do you need to know, boy?" Gunn is impatient. "Angel is freaking, possibly killing and maiming or boring someone with philosophy, and we're standing in this demon bar wasting valuable time while you get ready to fall apart? Get with the program. I don't know how they handle it back where you come from, but here we gear up and get moving." He gives Wes a pointed glare. "Unless you wanna research something before we go out and find him? Is there a book you need? Maybe you want to have tea and scones first?"

OK, that's it. Xander has had enough of this shit. "Where I come from we walk around geared up 24-7, so don't pull that hero bullshit with me. I don't know who you are, or what you think you know, but I've seen a lot more of Angel than you ever want to see, bud. So you go ahead and do what you have to do. I'm going to get the information I need before I go walking into the mouth of some demon who could eat you alive and spit out the bones later."

Gunn turns to Wes. "He's got a set of balls on him. He might come in useful after all." He turns to walk away, then calls over his shoulder. "You can talk in the truck. Let's get someplace less public before anyone we know makes an appearance."

~~~

Angel sees them leave the club. Fired or not, they are still his people, and he keeps a close eye on what he owns. Wesley is pathetically easy to tail; it was only a matter of time before Gunn showed up. Xander is a surprise, and there's a buzz in his spine when he sees the still-familiar figure of the boy hustled out between Gunn and Wes and shoved into the truck with them. He can smell their tension in the air, a high bitter tang over the warmer layer of anger from Gunn.

How easy would it be to take them all, all at once? Gunn is the only real immediate threat by virtue of his size and experience in hand-to-hand combat, but even he can be taken out. Angel has seen it happen, knows the right spot to hit him. High up on the temple. One good solid blow and he'll go down like a sack of dirt. The other two... Wes is wily enough to be a small worry, and Xander has likely added some slaying mileage since they were last face to face.

Panic would make everything fall in his favor, though. He's as sure of that as he is sure of the rising of the sun each morning.

They insist on being around him, insist on saving him. He'd laugh at the irony of it if it weren't so fucking close to his nerves. Firing them, getting them the hell away, scaring them into it if that was his only means ... it's all for their own good. And for his, too, in a way.

His mind would be much clearer is he could be sure that they were safe. This family needed to come first. The other would be attended to in due time.

He pulls out into traffic and follows the truck, thinks of Cordelia and the pain in her eyes, and wonders if he will ever have her trust again.

~~~

"Three cars back, Wes. You got another brilliant idea, or should I just drive until the sun comes up?" Gunn is looking in the rear view more often than he is looking at the road. Xander notes this fact but is too alarmed by the thought of Angel following them to get worked up over something trivial like death by car crash. He is starting to think how fitting it is that he's going to die because of Angel after all.

"Let me just thank you this scenic tour of how to die in LA, Wesley." Xander turns and looks out the back window of the truck. "You couldn't have phoned this in and had Giles send someone more capable. Like - I don't know - BUFFY maybe?"

"Well, frankly, Xander, I don't believe it's safe to use the phone anymore. After the incident with Faith, I believe the Council has their hands in all aspects of my life both at home and at work. A call such as this would have sent them straight after Angel."

Xander gives him a look that speaks volumes. "Tell me why that's a bad thing again?"

"This *is* Angel we're talking about. Not Angelus. I'm sure you can make the distinction, even if the Council can't." Wesley removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. "In his state of mind, I don't think involving Buffy would be doing anyone any good. Especially him."

Despite that fact that Xander really doesn't want to make that particular distinction, that he has always had some real difficulty with the whole split personality theory, he forces himself to suck it up for now. "And so why am I here if we're not about involving Buffy?"

"Yeah, why is he here and what the hell is a Buffy?" Gunn is still with them, multi tasking with driving, watching Angel tail them and getting in on the conversation all at once.

"He *was* here to get this information back to Mr. Giles. Just in case." Wesley doesn't need to finish the thought. Xander adds his own: just in case he really is Angelus, and always was, and decides to take up his favorite hobby of stalking Buffy and killing her friends.

"Still waiting for the word on Muffy." Gunn makes a turn on what is possibly less than all four wheels, and when they settle back into their positions, Xander resists the urge to commit suicide by hitting the guy right in the face.

"It's Buffy. And she's the Slayer. Something else we have back where I come from." Xander is grinding his teeth in a brain-melting combination of stress, anger and fear. "Don't ask me what a Slayer is. Just take my word for it when I say she could kick your ass in less time than it would take you to kick mine."

Gunn snorts but Wesley nods at him once, almost imperceptibly, and he lets it go. "Well, then I still say she'd be better off here than you, pretty boy."

"Could you *not* call me that?" Xander puts the heels of both hands over his eyes and presses hard enough to make himself see spots in red and white. "Where are we going, Wes? What are we going to do when we get there? And more importantly, what is Angel gonna do when we stop this truck?"

"I think we're about to find out the answer to that last one a little sooner than planned." Gunn slams on the brakes and the truck shudders to a halt. In the intersection before them, almost glowing in the glare of the headlights, stands what is quite possibly the ugliest demon Xander has ever seen. He looks at Wesley, and even *he* seems to be impressed by the sheer volume of slime pooling at the base of the...whatever it is. And whatever it is, it's big, and it's pissed off.

Xander sums it up succinctly. "We're fucked."

~~~

Angel almost rearends the truck when it swerves to a stop for no apparent reason. He swears softly and leaps out, heading for the driver's side and Gunn. He imagines they will all come out in full force; he'll be disappointed if they don't. That's the only way to face an unknown - be prepared for the worst.

He waits, and waits, and waits another beat. No movement from the truck, and he can see them all just sitting there, staring out the front window. Wonders briefly if this is some kind of bizarre set up they have concocted to throw him off.

"The hell with this," he says aloud and steps up to the door, hand on the cold, pitted silver, ready to rip it off in his haste to get this whole thing started. So this situation can barrel its way to the almost-certainly unpleasant end.

And then he sees it.

As Vliwq go, it's a pretty impressive specimen. Angel looks down at the slime that gushes forth whenever it moves, and back up at the tentacles that dangle in front of whatever passes for its mouth.

//What is it with the slime?// He heaves a mental sigh and turns to tell Gunn and the rest of them to stay in the truck.

That turns out to be unnecessary, as Gunn backs up abruptly, barely missing Angel's bumper. He hits the gas hard, spraying Angel and the Vliwq with debris as the truck hits the sidewalk and roars around the beast, rear wheels sliding and spinning in the viscous fluid.

Angel stares at the rapidly dwindling taillights and starts to see red. They could have at least made some kind of motion to help, even a nod or a reach for the door handle. Instead he gets dust and slime kicked up in his face, and the knot in his stomach clinches tighter, because they looked as afraid of him as they did of the putrid wall of slime. The place inside him where his new family had come to live felt hollow, and his world spun.

~~~

In the truck, chaos reigns. Wesley is shouting at Gunn, Xander is shouting at Wesley, and Gunn is telling them both to shut the hell up.

"Gunn, we must stop and help him." Wesley is extremely insistent as he twists in his seat to peer out the back window.

"The hell we must!" Xander and Gunn echo each other and in the shock of realization glare at the other appraisingly.

"He could be killed."

Xander almost laughs at that piece of logic. "Like I've been saying for years now, and that would be a bad thing?"

Gunn settles the debate. "I'm not stopping just so he can have an after slaying snack. We need to get someplace, settle down and figure out what's going on."

"I just want to say, that I lodged a complaint about leaving him. For the record." Wesley is being prim and proper guy again, straightening his glasses with a fussy little motion.

"You mean for Cordelia," Gunn mutters darkly. "I never saw two guys so overwhelmed by such a skinny, little stick-chick."

Xander raises his hand just a little, like he's asking permission to speak. "Could you two just drop me someplace, like the bus station? I mean, since we're on a road, and this road must connect to that road, and I am so not up for all this inside arguing shit. I mean, I thought I was getting a break from that when I left Anya and Willow at home. I would rather wander the streets and take my chances with gangs."

Wes looks affronted by this, of all things. ""We're not having an argument, much less an inside one. Not that I have any idea what you would mean by that. Besides, we haven't even discussed the issues at hand! The entire reason you're here is to find out the details to inform Mr. Giles."

"Wes, could you stop bobbing your knee? It's about to make me smack you up-side your addled brain." Xander sounds slightly over the edge of normal, leaning towards hysteria or panic. Gunn isn't sure which, and there's no time to baby him through either one.

"I hate to break up the routine, Abbott and Costello, but we're here. Let's get out of the truck and inside."

"Here? There isn't a here I want to be at." Xander peers at the run down building in front of them, reads the sign that flickers in dirty purple neon: "The Downlow."

Wesley stammers a little. "Gunn, certainly there is a better location..."

"You want to go in conscious or un?" And since Gunn looks perfectly happy to go with either choice, Xander says he prefers the former, reaches past Wesley to open the door and shoves him out into the nearly empty parking lot.

"Do they have alcohol here? Copious amounts? And do they take US currency? If so, I'm in. More your ass, Wes." At the door now, and Xander plants a hand on Wesley's resisting shoulder and pushes with a lot less enthusiasm than he really wants to.

Wes manages to stop himself inches shy of bumping into the doorman, a huge mountain of oiled muscle, darker than Gunn and twice as intimidating. Gunn reaches past Xander and Wes to shake the behemoth's hand. He pushes them both in ahead of him with less gentleness than Xander had shown to Wesley moments earlier.

Jay-Z's playing at a low thump, and the people in here don't look low rent, they look more no rent. Gunn says, "This place is safe. Angel-free, and yes, the alcohol flows freely." He points to a table that's open and directs them to it.

"Well, at least I can smoke in here." To the utter shock of both his companions, Wes reaches into his pocket to pull out a rumpled pack of Dunhill's and lights one up with a shaky hand.

"Not enough ways to kill yourself on the job? You gotta up the odds a little?" Xander leans back to avoid the smoke, as if the rest of the club isn't already fairly filled with a blue grey cloud of it.

"Xander, I'm sure you have your habits that I am not even remotely interested in finding out about." Wes is actually beginning to look slightly less clenched, and Gunn signals for the waitress.

"You two are about on my *last* nerve."

Wesley arches an eyebrow. "You were free to not come after me at Caritas."

The waitress arrives, and Xander breathes out an audible "Ohthankgod..." He's too rattled to notice that her breasts are perky and naked and right beside his ear, but Wesley notices at once.

"Gin and tonic," he says, clearing his throat. "Make it a double. Extra lime."

Xander sighs, and says, "Bud." When he completes the circuit of turning around, he finds himself eyeball to nipple with the girl taking down the drink orders. He adds, "And a shot. Tequila."

Gunn smiles. "Bring the bottle."

The three of them watch her saunter away. Xander takes a deep breath as he turns back to the table. "Anytime someone wants to get with the story telling, I'm all about it."

Gunn watches Wesley shake out another cigarette and begin to light it from the butt of his first one. He reaches out very calmly, takes the new smoke from Wesley's fingers and crushes it out on the tabletop. He glances at Xander, ignoring Wesley as he begins to sputter. "Angel, man, he lost it. He's running around town chasing after this shorty Darla."

"Kayyyyyyy, Darla who is another person than the dead one? I mean, other than the already dead one that Angel dusted in the 'dale? That is, the double dead one? Scratch that...what the hell are you talking about?"

Wesley gets up very deliberately and moves his chair away from Gunn, lights another cigarette. "It's one and the same. Darla was raised by our archnemises, Wolfram and Hart. That isn't really that important. Yes. It is she."

Gunn snorts. "Wes, man, you sound like you're in a Spiderman comic book."

Xander groans. "Where's the booze?"

"These Wolfram and Hart dudes put Darla up to working some mojo on Angel. Getting all up in his dreams. Pretty fucked up." Gunn seems intent on filling in all the details now that he's accepted the fact that Xander is with them for at least the rest of the night.

"Yes, indeed. She unsettled him greatly before we found out what was going on. And that she was human." Wesley on the other hand, seems determined to rattle Xander's brainwaves by throwing out all the other, even more confusing tidbits in that dry, matter of fact, oh-so-British tone of his.

"Whoa. Hold up. Human? Like as in not one of the blood sucking undead? Then wouldn't that mess up reality and cause Angel to never be a vampire, and then he would never have gone on the mega mega killing sprees..."

"You're the one who used to date Cordelia, aren't you? Sunnydale must be one freaked out little village." Gunn starts to look around for the waitress again. "All you half-cranked little white kids and the demon posse after you. You ever been hit in the head?"

"Yes." He looks at Gunn. "More than once."

"Really. I'm shocked to hear it." Completely deadpan now, and Xander has a fleeting thought that this guy is more than a match for him.

"Not that Xander's previous head traumas and alternate reality postulations aren't stimulating, but back to the matter at hand." Leave it to Wesley to drag things screeching back on track.

"Darla was at death's door. It appears she was, how do I put this..."

"A Colonial prostitute."

"Precisely. And she had contracted syphilis, which remainifested in her human body.This turn of events rattled Angel more than he already was."

"The boy started to get cracks in the foundation."

Xander's beginning to lose the thread. "You mean cracks not on his forehead?"

Wesley sighs. "A drink might be just the thing right now..."

"So, Angel is spazzing over Darla dying from VD even though he staked her to begin with?" Xander notices the way Gunn and Wes look past him, and he *knows* the waitress has chosen that moment to arrive. He reaches up and takes the shot from the tray and downs it while she sets the drinks on the table.

"Run me a tab, Shari," Gunn says. She walks off with a nod, and Wesley picks up where they left off.

"He thought she had begun to come around, to want to make another go of it. To redeem herself."

Gunn pours himself a shot, and refills Xander's. "He was thinking with his dick."

"That would be the Angel I know and detest." Xander eyes the full shot glass but opts for the beer this time.

"At any rate, before he could find her a safe haven, Wolfram and Hart interceded once again, with Druscilla."

"Did you say Druscilla? As in the other half of the diabolic duo? Fantastic." Xander swallows a gulp of beer hastily.

Gunn however, stops with the glass halfway to his mouth. "You know her too? You run with a mean crowd, pretty boy. All your scars hidden by your clothes?"

"I quote know her because she and her boytoy tried to kill me a few times, and well, she saved me from Angel once."

That perks Gunn's interest level right up. "Saved you from Angel...drop the tale on the evil Angel thing."

Wesley bangs his empty glass on the table. "As soon as I finish, Xander can regale you with his vast insights regarding Angelus. Yes, Druscilla turned Darla back into a vampire. That is why Angel is unhinged."

"No, unhinged happened when Angel-baby let those wenches chow down on the law firm."

"Hello, what? Isn't he supposed to be doing good or something that's not involving the killing of humans?"

"Yes, well, you can see why I needed to get this information back to Rupert. Angel allowed Druscilla and Darla to kill an unknown number of not exactly innocent individuals. Oh, and he fired us." Wesley waves his hand vaguely at the waitress and signals for another gin and tonic.

~~~

Demon slime doesn't come off.

Angel knows this is true, and it's a universal truth at that. Every demonic secretion from Chaos drips to Helizopnic ooze will leave a stain of some sort. If it doesn't actually dissolve what ever it touches.

So he counts the evening as pretty much a total loss. Gunn, Wes and Xander - yes, let's not forget the bonus track - are off into the vastness of LA with no hope of Angel tracking them. He's bruised and bleeding from the battle with the Vliwq, and of course, he's covered in whatever passes for its blood along with the gelatinous muck that they had ended up battling in.

He's considering the value of stripping before getting back in the car to prevent the spread of more slime when his cell phone rings.

//Why not?//

Reaching into his coat pocket, he comes up with the phone and a large quantity of mucus. He snaps it open and holds it as far from his face as he possibly can and says tightly, "What do you want, Cordelia?"

The wet phone is crackling so badly that he can barely make out what she's screeching about, but he picks up that it's a vision. Gritting his teeth, feeling the swell of the demon rising, he puts the sticky plastic to his face so he can hear her better.

"Cordelia, what part of fired was not entirely clear to you?" he growls at her.

"Hey, you might have fired me but the PTBs must have missed the memo, because I'm still getting the technicolor visions, pal."

"I don't have time for this."

"Don't you *dare* hang up on me, Angel. I can't reach Wesley or Gunn, and this is too big for them to take on anyway. You're going to have to put off the stalker boy act for a while and take care of this. Right. Now."

"The bodies are piling up while you nag."

"You catered the vampire buffet last time, so don't even try it."

Angel sighs, defeated. "Fine, tell me where it is and if it's on my way, I'll see what I can do."

"If it's on your way to where? Where're you headed? DId Darla page you to come pick her up? Did Druscilla send you a looney-gram with their new address on it?"

"Where *is* it, Cordelia?" Full game face now, and he doesn't really care.

When she gives him the address for the intersection where he stands beside the dead body of the Vliwq marinating in the ocean of its own juices, he hangs up on her very gently. Then he takes the phone, and throws it as far as he can, enjoying the satisfying sound of shattering glass as it connects with someone's window.

Share the joy.

~~~

Wesley has made a small pyramid of glasses in front of him, since the waitress was not inclined to remove the empties. Xander has a few beer bottles in front of him, arranged like bowling pins, but the shot glass has been getting a definite workout. Gunn holds the first empty tequila bottle in one hand and drinks with the other, allowing the second bottle to stand in the middle of the table.

Thankfully, Wesley has run out of smokes, and cannot muster the coordination to feed dollar bills into the machine by the restrooms. He props his chin on his hand and watches as Xander rambles on to Gunn.

"And then one time, Angel and Spike ambushed us in the park..."

"Hold up, dog. You mean to tell me that Cordelia was around for all these vamp hijnks, and she's all hooked up with the Angel team now?"

Wesley interrupts in a tone of resignation and disgust. "He wasn't the same person, Gunn. It was Angelus. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Xander, my man, you believe that?"

Xander grins at him. "Yeah, some days. The days when my shoulder isn't aching from the all the times it's gotten knocked out of socket being thrown against walls by him."

Gunn leans towards Wesley and points the empty bottle at him accusingly. "The going evil info coulda been floated my way a little sooner. Especially the 411 on sending the whole fucking planet to Hell."

"Gunn, really, that is neither here nor there, do you still want to help Angel or not?" Wes waves him off with a flutter of his hand and looks around him as if he expects to see Angel there and ask him for confirmation.

Xander leans in earnestly, concentrating on Wes with the determination of the massively intoxicated. "Wes, what's in this for you? I mean, couldn't you get a cozy teaching job somewhere and not risk your life on a daily basis for someone who may or may not one day have a Wesley souvenir, say a scalp, sitting on his closet shelf?"

Seriously, Wes blinks at him. "He's fighting the darkness. It's not an easy job. He needs help."

"We're the ones who need help if it's Angelus and not overhanging forehead, poetry reading guy." Punctuating that comment with a tossed back shot, Xander nearly loses his balance in the chair and steadies himself with a muttered, "Whoa."

"He has made no move to injure any of us."

Gunn slams his shot glass down. "We could just end this ourselves. Take out the bitches and have done with it."

"Brilliant plan, Gunn. We'll take out two of the most powerful vampires ever recorded all on our own then?" Wesley stands up and whistles loudly for the waitress. He sits down and peers over his glasses at them both. "Will you be asking them to leap onto your stake as part of this strategy?"

Xander laughs out loud suddenly, and when they look at him he says, "Seduce them and kill them in their sleep. Sorry, I'm being literal guy."

Wesley sighs deeply; apparently the waitress has cut them off. Somewhere in the back of his brain, thoughts begin to mesh, and he realizes he is both overly drunk and overly tired. "While this masterful plan that we are about to hatch is surely going to save the world and Angel's soul, I think I am not long for consciousness. How about we adjourn for the evening, and meet up again tomorrow?"

"I'm down with that. How y'all gonna make it back to your crib?" Gunn is pretty amenable to anything after all the tequila he's consumed.

"Cab."

Xander peers at Wes with some concern. "Wes, do you think it's the best idea to go back to your place? I have a hotel, why don't you come stay with me? I'm pretty sure Angel knows where you live. Besides, the Watcher's probably haven't bugged the room or anything."

"Xander, you don't have to…"

"Wes, shut your piehole. Let's settle up and go." Xander stands and sways in place.

"What about you, Gunn. Do you think it's safe for you to be at your place?" Wes stands, a little steadier than Xander but still definitely tilting off the straight and narrow.

Gunn is the only one able to get up and walk with any degree of normalcy. "Even Angel isn't stupid enough to try to jack me right in my zone, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

Xander is impressed, and Wes is a little jealous but neither of them want to let it show. "No, but I'm not your keeper. Whatever."

"Gimme the address." Xander pulls out a key from his pocket and hands it to Gunn, who looks at the smeary lettering on the plastic tag before handing it back.

"All right. Tomorrow."

The three of them stumble out past the bouncer and onto the sidewalk. Gunn makes sure they are steady on their feet before he heads to his truck and drives off.

Xander looks at the deserted street, then at Wesley. Both the street and the man are lacking a certain charm, and Xander is sure he looks no better himself. He runs a hand through his hair and asks without looking up, "So, Wes, what are the odds of a cab appearing for us at 2 in the morning in this part of town?

"Oh dear..."

~end


End file.
